The Movie:

If you're unfamiliar with Fellini's work and would like to begin somewhere, watching Satyricon first would probably be the worst choice. With Satyricon, Fellini's late 60s eccentric and experimental phase reached its peak, creating a fascinatingly yet frustratingly disconnected and incoherent oddity that resembled more of an LSD-induced fever dream sci-fi/fantasy than a historical epic adapted from a famous ancient text.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened to me, as Satyricon was my first foray into Fellini-land. In fact, I watched it twice before indulging in another one of his films. I was a fourteen-year-old film buff who mostly dabbled in Hollywood blockbusters at the time, but the coming of the more pretentious teenage years made me want to check out some art house or indie works.

I saw that Satyricon was going to be shown on cable, had heard the name Fellini as an important figure in film history, and decided to watch it as what I thought was to be my first art house film. At that age, I was fascinated with how bizarre and off-the-wall the whole experience was, even though I had to admit to myself that I didn't understand anything that was going on. Regardless, the gorgeous and intoxicating imagery was enough to get me hooked. I figured that I would understand its narrative and thematic qualities better as I got older.

During freshman year of film school, my classmates and I bought tickets to a screening of Satyricon being held during the 1998 Istanbul Film Festival. Now that I was four years older and about to enter into adulthood, I figured that I would have a firmer grasp on what Fellini was trying to say with his playful Roman satire. Again, the whole thing went over my head, even though I could still appreciate the astounding visual work. My frustrations with Satyricon were so pronounced that I didn't seek out another Fellini film until I was shown La Strada during a junior year class and found out that he was a master storyteller as well as a visually commanding, if somewhat pretentious, art house filmmaker. During the following years, I became a big fan of his as I began seeking out his late 50s and early 60s work, which is still my favorite Fellini period.

In many ways, Satyricon had the exact opposite effect La Dolce Vita had on me. Upon first viewing, I pegged La Dolce Vita as an exuberant yet shallow celebration of an excessive and hedonistic lifestyle. Only after repeat viewings did I realize that it was a scathing criticism of the world Fellini lived in at the time, and I now consider it to be a masterpiece. I loved Satyricon's ambition when I was young, simply because it opened my eyes to the practically limitless possibilities of cinematic language. Watching it now in my mid-30s, I found it tiresome and emotionally disconnected.

Like La Dolce Vita, Fellini attempts to satirize an existence of pure hedonism, yet this time, he cannot step away from his own exuberant visual style in order to serve his themes. Based very loosely on Petronius' work, written during Nero's rule in Rome, Satyricon is a string of disconnected vignettes revolving around a wholly dull character, Encolpio, played by an equally dull actor, Martin Potter. For this kind of vignette approach to work, one needs a powerful screen presence to anchor the whole enterprise, and Potter is as far away as you get from Mastroianni in any kind of talent imaginable.

Encolpio, a pretty boy who attracts many wealthy and powerful figures, embarks on various adventures, attending a fake funeral for a rich man, marrying a merchant, taking care of a hermaphrodite, and even fighting a Minotaur. Well, a buff dude in a creepy Minotaur costume. As Encolpio survives deadly situations thanks to his good looks and supposed charm, his rivalry with Ascilto (Hiram Keller), an arrogant young man not unlike Encolpio, keeps growing.

I still find Satyricon to be a fascinating and gorgeous visual experience, especially thanks to Criterion's amazing Blu-Ray transfer. The colorful make-up and costumes, the juxtaposition of drab grey locations with bright and exuberant sets, there was obviously a lot here that later directors drew tons of inspiration from. Hell, I bet that Satryricon is directly responsible for half of the visuals from 90s music videos, as well as Tarsem's entire filmography. But as a 130-minute feature, it feels cold and disconnected, and wears out its welcome pretty early.

Blu-Ray:

Video:

The gorgeous cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno presents a bit of a challenge for any home video transfer since every frame contains an extremely wide array of color and detail. I can't even imagine what Satyricon would have looked like on VHS with an unavoidable amount of color bleeding. The great guys at Criterion pass the Satyricon test with flying colors as the 1080p transfer represents the best way this film will look on home video for generations to come. There isn't any noticeable video noise, the colors all pop accordingly, and the contrast in each frame is stunning.

Audio:

Even though the disc comes with a DTS-HD 1.0 mono mix, which stays true to the film's original sound presentation, Satyricon actually contains a very crowded and complex audio work. A big chunk of the film's running time is composed of extravagant feasts and ceremonies full of bizarre noises and music. Criterion's lossless presentation is nothing short of amazing as every bit of detail in this insane mix comes off as clean and coherent as humanly possible.

Extras:

On the Set of Fellini-Satyricon: This is an audio recording of Eileen Lanouette Hughes' memoir about her experiences on the set, played over the feature. It's hard to call it a commentary, since not a single part of the text corresponds to anything happening on screen. However, it's a very personal and informative feature.

Ciao Federico: A one-hour making-of documentary on the filming of Satyricon that gives Fellini fans a front row seat into his directing methods. If you're a fan of Fellini yet not a fan of Satyricon, this documentary should be more rewarding than the main feature.

Interviews: Three short interviews with Fellini. Him making fun of Gene Shalit's mustache has to be seen by everyone.

Interview with Giuseppe Rotunno: In this 2011 interview, legendary DP Rotunno candidly talks about his personal and professional relationship with Fellini.

Interview with Luca Canali and Joanna Paul: Two classicists discuss the connection between Petronius' work and Fellini's loose adaptation. This feature mostly works as an interesting history lesson.

Interview with Mary Ellen Mark: Mark was a young photographer when she was assigned to take pictures of Fellini's set. In this 2014 interview, she talks about her first impressions of Fellini.

We also get a considerable amount of Artwork, as well as a Trailer. The booklet that opens up to a poster also includes an Essay by film scholar Michael Wood.

Final Thoughts:

I feel that it's time to throw in the towel as far as Satyricon is concerned and write it off as a Fellini oddity. Regardless of how I feel about the film, if you're a big fan of it, there's no way that you're going to get a better version of it on home video.

Oktay Ege Kozak is a film critic and screenwriter based in Portland, Oregon. He also writes for The Playlist, The Oregon Herald, and Beyazperde.com